BOSTON -- In case you missed it, Carl Crawford told Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald that he had no regrets about signing with the Red Sox, though he admitted the thought occurred to him a time or two during last season's struggles.

“Things didn’t go right for me the first year, so naturally, those thoughts creep into your head when you’re doing bad,” Crawford told Lauber.

“If I had a good season, those thoughts don’t creep up. But I’m a person (who) once I make a decision, that’s it. And at the end of the day, if I had to do it all over again, I think I’d make the same decision.”

Crawford is off to a flying start in his first three games this season, with 5 hits in his first 10 at-bats, with 6 runs scored in 12 plate appearances. It took him 23 games to score six runs last season, and 47 games before he had his first three-hit game, which is something he accomplished in his second game in 2012.

Crawford recently told Rob Bradford of WEEI.com that he still resents being dropped in the batting order after just two games by manager Terry Francona, from the second spot to the seventh hole. He used that as motivation, he said, for his fast start this season.

"I understand Boston. I'll remember that for the rest of my career, and going through that bad thing has probably helped me make sure I'm prepared," said Crawford, referring to being dropped in the order after two games. "I don't know who could be prepared for the first two games. You could be prepared for the first two games and still go 0-fer, and over here you would get dropped in the lineup for that. Anywhere else they just know it as the first two games. You just have to be prepared and lucky, and [Monday] I was both."

What goes unsaid by Crawford was that Francona was trying to alleviate some pressure in that third game after watching his new left fielder strike out three times in the season opener and a fourth time in the second game. The skipper was giving Crawford a break against a left-hander, Matt Harrison, by moving him down. The strategy produced results, with Crawford collecting his first two hits of the season and driving in a run, and the next game Crawford was restored to the No. 2 spot, and batted either second or first over the course of the next 10 games.

In that stretch, he batted .114 (5 for 44), with just 3 runs and 1 extra-base hit in 46 plate appearances. With the team 4-10 at that point, Francona shook up his lineup, dropping Crawford to the lower third of the order, where he remained for most of the season. The decision could hardly have been an easy one to make, given the investment the team had made in the left fielder, the way he had been billed as a "game-changer," and the embarrassment it created for the front office, with Theo Epstein surely signing off on Francona's decision.

This is not the first time Crawford has taken a shot at Francona. In spring training, when asked by WEEI.com about the way Bobby Valentine's spring training compared to last season's, Crawford said: "We didn't do anything. How could I get tired?''